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Edmund "Pathogen" Harris
Name: Edmund Harris Aliases: If he wants to make himself known. Edmund goes by either Pathogen or Quarantine. While in hiding he’ll go by whatever name belongs to his host. People usually refer to him (whether or not they know or believe that there is a sentient force behind it) by what his disease has become known as – Cape Flu. Identity Status: Unknown Age: Unknown Appearance Height: Depends on his current host/Smaller than a bacterium but larger than a virus Build: Depends on his current host/Average build, proportionate to his size Eyes: Depends on his current host/Yellow Hair: '''Depends on his current host/Bald '''Complexion: Depends on his current host/Scarred Fashion Sense: While Edmund generally likes fancy designer suits, he often follows his host’s preferences to keep up his façade. His true form however, is naked. Complete Description: ''' Edmund's outward human appearance depends entirely on his current host. Edmund himself on the other hand is a different story. Even though he can't be seen by the naked eye does not mean he is invisible or formless. Though very small, he does still have a physical body. His skin is clear, showing off his internal systems, almost everything in him is visible; muscles, bones, and organs. His body is completely hairless and littered with many scars. Background '''Family: '''He has a sister, but that's about it. If one includes his virus then he has countless descendants. '''Personality: '''Sadistic, seems to have a hard time making up his mind. '''Social Life: Variable depending on his host/None Fame rating: '''Today it is virtually non-existent and he'd prefer it to stay that way, though his abilities are very well known, that they are caused by him is not as known. '''Nationality: Depends on his current host/Indeterminable Ethnicity: '''Depends on his current host/Indeterminable '''History/Origin: Edmund's powers manifested at a very young age. After accidentally infecting his sister and nearly killing her, he was dumped off at an orphanage. His sister didn't die from Edmund's powers, but its effects dangerously enhanced her own powers. Yes, both siblings were mutants, but Edmund was seen as the "bad one" and so sent away. While in his new home, Edmund soon learned more about his ability, for one thing it would only affect people with powers, the normal kids there were apparently immune. For another, when someone would fall ill he would feel his strength increase and came to enjoy it to the point where he would even torment and provoke his victims in the mindworld (see Powers.) He became addicted to the feeling of power and the strength their losses gave him. It didn't help that the ability itself was so subtle his teachers and caretakers even doubted that Edmund truly possessed powers. Even believing that there was no connection between Edmund and the illness at all, thinking that the mutant children were simply not as clean or hygienic as the normal ones. Even the other children didn't think he was behind it, with his mindform he could look like anything when he visited the infected. The first people to die because of his disease didn't happen for a few years (it seemed that not everyone to come down with it would give up their powers or trade for them so readily.) The deaths were seen as flukes at first, still no one really believed Edmund had a power, as his mutation wasn't nearly as visible as others' were (as there was a rise in physical mutations from survivors who had kept their powers within the orphanage and neighboring school. So physical differences, which Edmund the time had none had slowly become synonymous with mutant.) Instead of feeling horrified that he had caused deaths, Edmund was fascinated and had enjoyed the feeling he received. The deaths had filled him in a way survivors never had, and even changed him, his eyes turning yellow and taking on a feral gleam. Luckily for him the deaths were blamed on a regular if brutal fever, until the father of two dead students arrived. He was a telepath and knew right away that something was off. By this point Edmund had become twisted, he had even left the orphanage (he was within age to be released and among the eldest there anyway) in pursuit of stronger mutants, not just children. Edmund would personally stalk his victims and go after stronger powered ones, a tiger-morph here, and a weather controller there. Not all his later encounters would end in death for his victims, but significant amounts were beginning to fall to it. Unknown to him yet, but he had also gained a stalker of his own. Edmund had been faced with people coming after him before. In the intervening years he had become increasingly well known amongst mutant communities. Some were after him in hopes to increase or be rid of their powers. Others wanted to get rid of him, which was easier said than done if you were a mutant. He had ways of defending himself and if things got too rough, his powers would protect him and had even saved him from assault many a time. Even the occasional mutant out for revenge against him could be stopped, true he knew he could not re-infect someone, but he still had the barest of links with those he did and so had ample warning of their presence. One mutant found a way around that. He had not contracted Edmund's illness through Edmund himself. Apparently the disease was contagious, and without knowledge of his own deliberate infestation Edmund was clueless that he'd be unable to infect this person. As stated earlier, a mutant could only catch it once. The day that the telepath had come down to the school because of his loss, he contracted the sickness. He survived it with his powers intact and incredibly amplified, but he had become grossly disfigured. Edmund's appearance was greatly changed as well; his facial features were little more than slits and his skin had taken on an almost translucent cast, the veins visibly pulsing beneath it. But these changes just made identifying him all the easier. Their fight was rough; Edmund was visibly shocked when his illness would not affect his stalker. Even worse, being of telepathic ability, the other mutant had some kind of a hold on his mindworld. The final straw was Edmund's lack of remorse, yes those first deaths he caused had been entirely accidental, but the subsequent ones were not. Edmund had to be stopped. Killing him seemed to be the only answer, but maybe there was another way. This mental mutant's powers had evolved to the point where he could strongly affect another's mind. He made Edmund believe he had come down with his own illness, have him kill or depower himself. Like many other mutants had been when faced with the ultimatum, Edmund was confused (especially so, he believed that he was safe from his own powers) and scared. The telepath's revenge worked, but in a more horrible way than he had intended. The telepath wanted answers and to strip Edmund of his abilities, but Edmund's panic was too much and the result triggered a new mutation within him. The result was just like as if he truly had come down with his own disease, the fevered mutant's powers became twisted and corrupt. Edmund began to shrink at an alarming rate, his clothes and even his skin sloughing right off. The shrinking wouldn't stop, Edmund managed to escape and somehow get to safety. It is suspected that his sister holds some involvement. Miscellaneous: *While he only lets three ways around his disease be known; there are actually six. *Give into the disease and die. *Give up your powers in your life’s stead. *Make a trade off – often leaves powers grotesquely altered. *Kill Edmund in the mindworld. *Roll with it, endure, and outlast the fever. *Deny your powers; the disease cannot take hold of someone without abilities. Skills and Abilities: Superhuman abilities: Disease Creation: Edmund's mutation is a bizarre one; he can create and spread a potentially deadly sickness. Said virus affects only mutants and those with superhuman abilities. Effected individuals experience hallucinations, exhaustion, and a high fever. The fever is where things get strange; the individual finds themselves on a mindscape, usually a peaceful place where their own mind has taken them to alleviate the suffering their body is experiencing. Here Edmund may visit them in one of his many avatar forms. They are told they have a choice; Let the disease kill them, give the disease what it wants (their powers,) or offer the illness something in their ability's stead. (There are other choices; these are merely the ones that he lets his victims know about.) The former two are self-exclamatory, but the latter needs some defining. The afflicted does not choose how this works, the effects are random. An ice controller may find his well-being heavily affected by the temperature, or a phaser may find not slipping through objects now requires the concentration that he once needed in order to walk through items, and so on. In extreme cases, though the alteration/enhancement can take a different turn. They can be as much affected by subconscious will as the power itself. An example of this variation would be; a non powered flyer sprouting wings. He can not be affected by this ability, but believed he could at one point, nearly ruining his life. This power took an extraordinarily odd turn when Edmund believed himself to have come down with his own sickness. Pay back from a telepath whose children were killed by his disease (more info in background) though the telepath himself survived with his powers intact. Edmund never did have his own illness, but believed it to the point where it effected his own mutation. He would not give up his powers and under the belief that he had to; his mind twisted his form to preserve them. His natural body is now tiny, but not quite as small as the disease he spreads. Mindlink: Edmund maintains a link of some sort with the infected victims. He can talk and even interact with them on a sort of mental plane. Yes he can be killed while on the mindscape, but it's just the avatar form that dies. If he's killed there, his hold on that individual is lost and the disease runs its course without further damage to the victim (powers, life, and health are all spared, it's as though they simply had a normal fever.) This is one of the alternatives to the three he lets be known. Once the disease is caught and survived (with or without powers intact) the individual cannot contract it again. He does not always talk to or taunt his victims here. Ageless Form: Simply put Edmund gains the years lost by those who have fallen to the disease. His lifespan and powers are extended and enhanced with each victim's loss. This does not mean that he can't be killed, just that his "old age" is many, many years away. He does not gain the mutant abilities of the fallen either; just his own powers' strengths are enhanced. It's hard to tell just how old Edmund is, not only since you can't really see him, but because of the effects of this power. Not only are those lost years from deaths added on to his life-span but in addition Edmund seems to get more youthful looking with each one, this does not mean he gets physically younger, just that his appearance is. But with a large enough amount of deaths or a significantly powered mutant falling, it could happen. One wrong mutant and he can mess up his physiology in this manner; it is not only his victims who are affected by his power manipulations. Parasitic/Pathogenic Form: What started off as the simple ability to create and spread a potent virus effecting only mutants and other powered beings, ended in tragedy for him. With his body now microscopic, Edmund requires a means in order to interact with the world around him, he needs a host body. The body does not need to be that of a mutant and is actually safer if it is human. If his host were to be a mutant they may very well fall victim to his disease. While he can inhabit a human body and spread his disease through it, a human can not contract his virus. How Edmund takes over and possesses a body isn't really certain but he has done it. First on rats and then moved his way up to humans. The control is not perfect and his hosts have been known to fight back control for short periods. These periods usually consist of yelling "Get it out of my head!" and banging their head against a wall, or similar fits of panic before Edmund regains his control over them. His hosts typically do not last long, as his presence within them causes a great strain to the body. In addition to possessing them, he is also living off of the host like a true parasite. The bodies tend to age twice as fast as they would normally. He also doesn't treat the host with the greatest of care, often causing them to self-mutilate as a form of punishing rebellion or seemingly out of boredom. There are kinder, much less damaging methods of taking control and sharing another's body, but Edmund doesn't seem interested in using them. While he may only be able to infect each mutant but once with his disease, he has been known to purposely inflict his host and those close by with short symptom like spells of vomiting or coughing fits. Flaws: Microscopic form Edmund is microscopic and needs a host body to live off of. He can not survive long without one; the host is needed for sustenance as well as interaction. Due to his current size producing his virus takes a lot out of him, so constant nourishment is needed from the host during these periods. Said host bodies scarcely last him more than a few years, they inevitably break down and deteriorate. If Edmund wasn't so twisted and bitter he might come to realize there's another side to his parasitic form, one that wouldn't be as detrimental to his host's health. Unstable Edmund is prone to fits of insanity, rage, and self-pity. As stated before, victims' deaths benefit him more than the other results but have been known to overwhelm him, manifesting as physical changes; his eyes, his lack of hair, his skin, etc. Miscellaneous Gadgets, props, etc: (does not need to be an all-encompassing list, just some things that might come up often like a Dick Tracey watch or a magic staff) Pets: (If your character has an animal friend that will be mentioned, include a description of its looks and personality/temperment here.) Played By: Sho aka Legacy